"In ending TPS, the Trump administration is forcing refugees to back into a broken country."

In this op-ed, writer Fabienne Josaphat details her father's experience as a survivor of Haiti's 2010 earthquake, and explain the need for Temporary Protective Status in the U.S. for other survivors.

Weeks before my father passed away from a brain tumor, I gave him a thumbs up to reassure him as his body slid inside an MRI machine. He gave me a thumbs up back, but he asked the technician what to do if he panicked, his breath already shallow with fear. As a victim of Haiti’s January 2010 earthquake, he was buried under the ruble of the building he worked in for hours and developed claustrophobia.

Although the program was temporary, those living in the U.S. under TPS feel uncertain as Haiti is still unprepared for the advent of natural disaster. Our lack of resource stems from [massive debt] generated by France and the United States, as well as the corruption of dictatorships. This is how Haiti has been lassoed from the beginning into owing exorbitant and perpetual debt in desperation for survival, and has been kept in a constant state of dependency since its revolution in 1804. Because of this, we cannot run our politics without international influence. We are caught between abject poverty and corruption, always struggling to repair the cracks in our own foundation. To make matters worse, Haiti is threatened by a cholera outbreak, a disease introduced by soldiers of the United Nations in the fall of 2010, [at the tail end of the earthquake](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/18/490468640/u-n-admits-role-in-haiti-cholera-outbreak-that-has-killed-thousands ]. Still, Haiti has not received compensation for this affliction. The Guardian reported that “since cholera erupted in Haiti in September 2010, the UN has insisted that it is legally immune from any claims for compensation from those who were sickened or from the families of those who died.”

In ending TPS, the Trump administration is forcing refugees to back into a broken country. The Haiti I know, and last visited this summer, is not yet equipped to house these families. If my father were among that number, where would he go?

Maybe he would flee to Canada like many Haitians are doing, only to find his application for asylum possibly rejected: According to Newsweek, only 17% of Haitian refugee claims were accepted as of October. If friends and family died in the earthquake, then there may be no other alternative than to return to Haiti and sleep in the streets. He may have to hustle to live, sell his clothes, go hungry, and fall into the mouth of the next natural disaster, as has happened to so many after Hurricane Matthew. He could become sick from cholera, exposure and poverty, unable to sustain himself.

Instead, staying in protective status in America offers TPS beneficiaries the alternative of life. And here is the truth about the Haitian people: We work ourselves to death. We believe in the power of education. Haitian parents sacrifice everything for their children to succeed as doctors, lawyers, engineers. According to the American Immigration Council, Haitian, Salvadoran and Honduran TPS beneficiaries “add between $1.2 and $2.7 billion dollars annually to each state’s GDP” to the country’s gross domestic product.

Years later, I can still see my father in my mind, struggling to relax as his body entered the MRI machine for another imaging session that would reveal what we already knew: he was dying. But in his mind, my father knew, he’d already died in that earthquake. He hadn’t cheated death. Death had already consumed him. All of Port-au-Prince had collapsed on his body — on thousands of bodies now huddled in America, seeking shelter. My father’s residence was still standing but unsafe after the tremors. The walls were cracked, the roof menacing to cave in the aftermath. Still, he stayed indoors with his fears of being buried beneath the rubble. Till his final day, my father’s claustrophobia haunted him.

Like him, these TPS recipients will now how to live in incertitude. I think of them how I think of my father, and hope that in a small act of mercy, at least, they will be granted a more permanent protection under a stable roof.